Blockchain Technology to Fight Counterfeit Drugs

Counterfeit drugs are a major problem in several countries. Counterfeit drugs are life-threatening. Blockchain technology helps in tracking, tracing and authenticating drugs at each stage of the transit of the drug.

It has already been established that by the year 2023 every pharmaceutical chain in the US should comply with the regulations accorded by the Drug Supply Chain Security Act.

These regulations require that each batch of the prescription drug unit should be assigned with a unique serial number. This should be made in a way that it is track-able by making use of an interoperable electronic system. However, when this law was passed no such system existed.

Companies were not sure of how they will enable compliance for a system or technology that never existed. However, the emergence of the blockchain technology coincided with the coming of this act.

Blockchain technology thus provided the compliance solution required for tracking the drugs with the unique serial number. Therefore, manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and the distributors of these drugs began to explore the usability of the blockchain technology to comply with the track and the trace regulation of the US government.

This is an ideal technology to trace the authenticity of the prescription drug. The data that is related to the path of flow taken by these drugs until they make it to the end patient is valuable in ensuring the authenticity of the drugs to the end consumers.

This system was viable as it was transparent radically and the distributed ledger as we know is immutable, and any change can be easily tracked. The technology also facilitates the process of proving that one part of the statement is true without having to disclose further information about the transaction. The process discloses just what is absolutely necessary to prove it.

Sensitive data is kept private in this process. However, the process works with a smart contract with crucial business rules. Companies will be able to commission specific serial numbers. This method will function at its best when a network is formed within the pharmaceutical supply chain. The power of this technology is mostly based on the partner relationships in the network. Moving forward, the most innovative solutions are going to help identify counterfeit drugs floating in the supply chain.

When the network for identifying counterfeit drugs is formed, everyone will be able to benefit from it; however, the competition will continue.

This technology can be used to monitor the storage temperature of the drugs and maintain critical product custody for personalized medicines.

XinFin can help with producing a working prototype that can be tested for enterprise involvement.

About The Author

Sydney has 20+ years commercial experience and has spent the last 10 years working in the online marketing arena and was the CMO for a large FX brokerage.
Sydney is among the top 30 ICO experts on ICObench and has previously worked with numerous ICO projects including trade.io, DIW token, Lydian, Xinfin.io and more..